1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to methods and apparatus for handling live shackled poultry between the farm and the processing plant.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The traditional way of catching and cooping live poultry for transport to the processing plant is a dirty, undesirable and labor consuming task. Catching crews must work during nighttime hours, physically catch the live poultry, load the poultry into coops, transfer the filled coops onto a transport vehicle, transport the poultry to the processing plant, remove the coops at the poultry processing plant and finally transfer the live poultry onto shackles and to a processing conveyor for delivery into the processing plant.
Prior to applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 3,796,192, no attempt had been made to deliver already shackled live poultry to the processing plant. While this patent teaches a shackle adapted to manual gathering and shackling at the farm and use of the shackle to suspend the poultry on the processing line, it does not teach a mechanical systm and method for gathering and conveying the poultry on foot into the shackle. In this regard, the method and apparatus of copending application Ser. No. 912,726 provides a system for mechanically gathering and shackling of live poultry on foot at the farm and for delivering mechanically gathered and shackled poultry to a processing plant.
To complete the discussion of the prior art, reference is made to the discussion of additional prior art noted in applicant's prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,796,192 as well as in applicant's copending application Ser. No. 912,726 and such discussion will be deemed incorporated herein by reference.
With applicant's prior contributions and the mentioned additional prior art in mind, the object of the present invention thus becomes that of providing improved apparatus and method for handling shackled live poultry between the shackling station and the processing plant and particularly to provide improved conveying method and apparatus at the farm and processing plant and improved means for transporting the shackled live poultry from the farm to the processing plant in the paired limb, side-by-side array.